1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mounting apparatus for mounting opposed sets of blades of glass gob shearing devices for shearing, streams of molten glass into individual gobs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A device for shearing a spaced-apart plurality of streams of molten glass into individual gobs is disclosed in U.S. Pat. 5,573,570 (Leidy et al.), which is assigned to the assignee of this application, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein. According to the disclosure of the aforesaid '570 patent, each stream of glass is periodically severed into individual gobs by an opposed set of shear blades each of which is mounted on a carriage. The opposed carriages are periodically reciprocated toward and done away from one another to bring the free, shearing, ends of the blades carried thereby into overlapping contact with one another, to thereby shear the streams of glass passing therebetween, and then out of overlapping contact with one another to permit the glass stream to pass therebetween and thereby present additional molten glass to be sheared into yet another gob. In modern practice, typically the molten glass is presented to the shearing device in a plurality of co-planar, spaced apart streams, usually three or four such streams, and each of the opposed shear blade carrying carriages carries one linear shear blade for each of the glass streams it is to be used with.
For proper shearing action, the shearing ends of the opposed blades in each set must make physical contact with one another. Such physical contact, which must be repeated quite often over a prolonged period of time, can lead to impact damage of the shear blades if the problem of excessive contact loads is not properly addressed. Heretofore, this has been done by periodically readjusting the position of one or both of the opposed shear blade carriages. However, this is a time consuming procedure and leads to lost production during periods of blade carriage readjustment.